Culture as a Consumer Product II Culture as a Consumer Product: The Negative Side When thinking about how consumerism affects culture negatively, we must first start to answer the debatable question “In the 21st century, is it important to protect local culture from encroaching Americanization?” However many answers may vary to this certain question. Although consumerism effecting culture in the 21st century can have both positive and negative aspects based on what perspective the subject is being viewed on, there are many cons to culture being a consumer product considering the Americanization it brings to cultural countries. Consumerism is the production of the products that are most interesting to consumers. Culture is affected by this due to eastern countries choosing to purchase westernized products for their residents rather than their own cultural ones.
Figure 11.1 shows us the levels of a pyramid that represent the main factors that go into the decision making of consumers before purchasing products. Cultural factors lie at the bottom of the pyramid, meaning cultural aspects are taken into consideration by consumers while choosing to buy American based products, but not as much as the three other levels are. The Americanization of this figure shows once we realize that culture is the base of decisions, however it is the least valued out of all the others.
Since this type of globalization causes cultural imperialism where the culture is practically “thrown away” (see figure 11.2), it is important that cultural protection laws come into play, where steps are taken to create better bills to serve the greater good, and start protecting cultural traditions as well as restore the loss of culture that consumerism has brought. The constant sending and receiving of content on the internet is called streaming content which has contributed to consumerism effecting culture by streaming Americanized content around the world without the ability of being stopped, thus repeatedly introducing western production instead of cultural subject content. Some cultural countries forbid streaming content to enter their premises legally for the reason of protecting their unique origin and decreasing the chance of cultural loss. Multinational corporations are the last main example of demonstrating culture as a consumer product because we see corporations expanding their businesses globally, by doing this they are introducing a new option of products to countries that are restricted to their own cultural ones. Along with the other examples, multinational corporations conduct a loss of culture by bring new and interesting production to those who are not already familiar with them. however these are somewhat different because of their ability to bring a whole new American based culture with no legal restriction as they branch out and become more and more popular around the world.
Figure 11.2 indirectly shows us how cultures have been " thrown away" due to cultural consumers buying western products and keeping them as is, rather than "repairing" them to fit their cultures throughout the years.
Jackson, L. (2017, September 28). Canada's new cultural policy takes 'baby steps,' but leaves heavy lifting for later. Financial post. Retrieved 18/11/17 from
Culture as a Consumer Product: The Negative Side
When thinking about how consumerism affects culture negatively, we must first start to answer the debatable question “In the 21st century, is it important to protect local culture from encroaching Americanization?” However many answers may vary to this certain question. Although consumerism effecting culture in the 21st century can have both positive and negative aspects based on what perspective the subject is being viewed on, there are many cons to culture being a consumer product considering the Americanization it brings to cultural countries. Consumerism is the production of the products that are most interesting to consumers. Culture is affected by this due to eastern countries choosing to purchase westernized products for their residents rather than their own cultural ones.
Figure 11.1 shows us the levels of a pyramid that represent the main factors that go into the decision making of consumers before purchasing products. Cultural factors lie at the bottom of the pyramid, meaning cultural aspects are taken into consideration by consumers while choosing to buy American based products, but not as much as the three other levels are. The Americanization of this figure shows once we realize that culture is the base of decisions, however it is the least valued out of all the others.
Since this type of globalization causes cultural imperialism where the culture is practically “thrown away” (see figure 11.2), it is important that cultural protection laws come into play, where steps are taken to create better bills to serve the greater good, and start protecting cultural traditions as well as restore the loss of culture that consumerism has brought. The constant sending and receiving of content on the internet is called streaming content which has contributed to consumerism effecting culture by streaming Americanized content around the world without the ability of being stopped, thus repeatedly introducing western production instead of cultural subject content. Some cultural countries forbid streaming content to enter their premises legally for the reason of protecting their unique origin and decreasing the chance of cultural loss.
Multinational corporations are the last main example of demonstrating culture as a consumer product because we see corporations expanding their businesses globally, by doing this they are introducing a new option of products to countries that are restricted to their own cultural ones. Along with the other examples, multinational corporations conduct a loss of culture by bring new and interesting production to those who are not already familiar with them. however these are somewhat different because of their ability to bring a whole new American based culture with no legal restriction as they branch out and become more and more popular around the world.
Figure 11.2 indirectly shows us how cultures have been " thrown away" due to cultural consumers buying western products and keeping them as is, rather than "repairing" them to fit their cultures throughout the years.
Biblography:
Thompson V. (no date given). What is consumer culture. Chron. Retrieved 17/11/17 from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/consumer-culture-57886.html
Pierre D.(2012, June 21). what are the advantages and disadvantages of consumerism? Quora. Retrieved from 19/11/17 from https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-consumersm
Jackson, L. (2017, September 28). Canada's new cultural policy takes 'baby steps,' but leaves heavy lifting for later. Financial post. Retrieved 18/11/17 from
__https://www.google.ca/amp/business.financialpost.com/telecom/cancon-ottawa-unveils-125m-in-federal-funding-to-develop-creative-export-strategy/amp__